Truthout
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist and author of best-selling books on prison, Black liberation and social justice. In 1981, he was elected president of the Philadelphia chapter of the Association of Black Journalists. That same year he was arrested for allegedly killing a white police officer in Philadelphia. He was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982, in a process that has been described as an epic miscarriage of justice. In 2011, after spending more than 28 years on death row, his death sentence was vacated when the Supreme Court allowed to stand the decisions of four federal judges who had earlier declared his death sentence unconstitutional. He is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole and in failing health. He also has recorded countless radio commentaries. He holds a BA from Goddard College and an MA from California State University, Dominguez Hills.